McLaren in "a good position" heading into new F1 season - Lando Norris

Lando Norris in actie tijdens de wintertestdagen in Bahrein — Photo: © LAT Images

McLaren

McLaren in "a good position" heading into new F1 season - Norris

McLaren caught the eye with strong running in pre-season testing

Sam Hall

Thursday 18 March 2021 15:00

Lando Norris is confident McLaren is in a "good position" for the start of the new Formula 1 season despite completing the third-fewest number of laps in testing.

McLaren clocked 327 laps during the three days in Bahrain, with only Mercedes [314] and Aston Martin [303] achieving less, and both spent long periods in the garage with reliability problems.

But neither the lap chart nor the timesheet presents an accurate picture of how the test has been perceived by a team, with McLaren one of the stronger performers, aided by an innovative rear diffuser.

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"We didn’t do the most laps but we didn't have problems," said Norris. "We haven’t been sitting in the garage or anything.

"We’ve just been thoroughly going through everything, testing everything we wanted to do and sticking to our run plan – doing long runs, doing short runs – but I think we had a good few days.

“It’s not always about who can do the most laps but I think we have put ourselves in a good position for when we come back for the race [on March 26-28].”

Norris, who enters his third year in F1 this season, is partnered by former Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo.

McLaren has also taken on the Mercedes power unit after using the Renault system for the past three years, leaving Norris as one of the few constant factors between years.

Asked if this increased the value of his personal feedback, Norris added: “It’s valuable. All information is valuable at the end of the day. We both have different sides of the feedback from Daniel and myself but both are important.

“His understanding of what Renault did last year and what he can bring to the table from that side and, of course, the differences from last year’s McLaren to this year’s McLaren – what bits are better, what bits are worse because we’ve taken downforce off so things can be worse.

“Its been trying to understand that, see the differences in it all and I think we have done that quite nicely but, as I said, all information is valuable so it’s not a competition.”